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Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, philosophy and health care

Sunday, June 18, 2017

Has Physician-Assisted Death Become the “Good Death?”

Franklin G. MillerThe Hastings Center
Originally published May 30, 2017

“Death with dignity” for the past 40 years has meant, for many people, avoiding unwanted medical technology and dying in a hospital. A “natural” death at home or in a hospice facility has been the goal. During the last 20 years, physician-assisted suicide has been legalized for terminally ill patients in several states of the United States, and recently “medical assistance in dying,” which also includes active euthanasia, has become legal in Canada. How should we think about what constitutes a good death now?

There are signs of a cultural shift, in which physician-assisted death is not just a permitted choice by which individuals can control the timing and circumstances of their death but is taken as a model of the good death. A recent lengthy front page article in the New York Times recounts a case of physician-assisted death in Canada in a way that strongly suggests that a planned, orchestrated death is the ideal way to die. While I have long supported a legal option of physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill, I believe that this cultural shift deserves critical scrutiny.